How to Navigate Overwhelming Emotions without Dimming Your Light

Have you ever felt like your emotions are just…too much?

One minute you’re grounded, maybe even feeling magickal and connected. The next, you’re spiraling. Crying in the bathroom. Snapping at someone you love. Feeling like the world is too loud, too fast, and just too much to handle.

If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone.

As a therapist who works with witchy souls, intuitive feelers, and spiritually curious humans, I hear this all the time. Many of us were taught to hide our emotions, to “be good,” or to toughen up. We were told to calm down when we were upset, or smile through pain.

No one really taught us how to feel. We were taught how to cope.

This blog is a gentle guide for those of us who feel deeply. We'll explore what feelings actually are, why they sometimes feel like tidal waves, and how to start navigating your emotional world with more kindness, clarity, and grounding.

What Are Feelings, Really?

We talk about feelings all the time, but most of us were never taught what they actually are.

We weren’t taught that feelings are part of our body’s built-in wisdom system. We definitely weren’t taught how to move through them in a healthy, embodied way.

So here’s a simple way to understand it:

• Emotions are quick, automatic reactions in the body. They happen before you have time to think, like your heart racing, your stomach dropping, or your eyes tearing up.

• Feelings are what you become consciously aware of after the emotion hits. They’re how you interpret what your body is doing. “I feel anxious,” “I feel sad,” “I feel excited.”

Understanding this can take the edge off. You’re not “overreacting.” Your body is reacting to something real, even if you don’t fully understand it yet. And your feelings? They’re trying to help you understand what matters.

Why Big Feelings Feel So Big

If you’re someone who’s always been told you’re too sensitive or too emotional, you’ve probably learned to second-guess your feelings. Maybe you’ve even learned to hide them, especially the ones that feel inconvenient, messy, or loud.

But hiding your emotions doesn’t make them go away. It just makes them build up inside.

This is especially true with feelings like anger. So many of us were taught that anger is dangerous or inappropriate. We were told to “be nice,” “get over it,” or “don’t make a fuss.”

But here’s the truth: anger isn’t bad. It’s a signal. It tells you when something’s not right, when a boundary has been crossed, or when something matters deeply to you.

It’s not something to suppress. It’s something to listen to.

When we don’t give space to emotions like anger, grief, fear, or even joy, they can start to feel overwhelming. Not because we’re broken, but because we’ve never been shown how to feel them in a way that’s safe.

So What Do You Do With Big Feelings?

This is one of the most common things people bring to therapy.

“If I let myself feel this, I’ll fall apart.”
“If I start crying, I’ll never stop.”
“If I let the anger out, it’ll destroy everything.”

But feelings aren’t bottomless. In fact, most emotions only last about 90 seconds when you let them move through your body. What makes them linger is when we avoid them, fight them, or layer on shame.

So how do you start to be with your emotions, instead of feeling like they’re taking you out?

Here are a few simple ways to begin.

1. Come Back to Your Body

Your body knows how to anchor you. Feel your feet on the ground. Hold something cold. Light a candle and focus on the flame. Smell something comforting. Small sensory rituals help you stay in the present moment when emotions pull you into the past or future.

2. Name What You’re Feeling

There’s power in naming. Try saying, “I notice a wave of sadness,” or “I’m feeling a tightness in my chest that might be fear.” You don’t have to be the emotion, you can witness it.

3. Let It Move

Emotions are energy. They need somewhere to go. Cry, scream into a pillow, dance, shake, write a messy journal entry, stomp your feet, whatever helps the feeling move through instead of getting stuck.

4. Create a Simple Ritual

For spiritual folks, ritual can help turn emotional messiness into something sacred. Pull a tarot card to reflect on the feeling. Burn a letter you wrote in anger. Pour your grief into a bowl of water and offer it to the earth. These small acts create meaning, and meaning helps us heal.

Feeling Your Feelings Isn’t a Failure

One thing I want to gently challenge is the idea that emotional regulation means always being calm or “in control.” That’s just not real life.

You don’t have to be chill to be healing.

Being regulated doesn’t mean you never get upset, it means you know how to support yourself when you do. It means you’re building a relationship with your emotions that’s based on trust, not fear.

You’re not failing if you cry, rage, freeze, or feel everything all at once. That’s just part of being human. And for people who feel deeply, that’s part of being alive.

Emotions Are Not a Problem, They’re Part of Your Path

In spiritually oriented therapy, we treat emotions as sacred messengers.

• Your sadness might be pointing to something you love.

• Your fear might be trying to protect you.

• Your anger might be guarding a wound that hasn’t been heard.

• Your joy might be showing you where your soul wants to bloom.

These aren’t things to fix or get rid of. They’re part of your inner wisdom.

Your emotional world isn’t separate from your spiritual path, it is a part of your path.

If your emotions feel like too much to carry alone, you are invited to book a free 30-minute intro call so we can explore what you’re looking for and see if spiritually oriented therpay might be a good fit.